paring a complete code of laws, which subsisted for forty years, and laying the foundation of a system of public education under which that portion of the empire has made enormous progpress. His retirement was marked by the people in a manner peculiarly acceptable to its recipient's taste and character. It was resolved to found a college in Bombay bearing his name, and endowed for the teaching of those subjects in which he took the deepest and most abiding interest. And when the proposal was notified to him he characteristically welcomed it, eagerly replying, 'Hoc mille potius signis.'
From November 1827 to May 1829 Elphinstone travelled, principally in Greece, then in the midst of her deliverance from Turkish domination. He visited Athens, still garrisoned by the Porte, and made the acquaintance of the Greek leaders Capo d'Istria and Colocotroni. Wintering in Italy he passed through Paris in April, and finally returned to London, after an absence of thirty-three years. No 'honours,' in the vulgar sense of the word, awaited him. A baronetcy had already been declined by his friends, with his cordial acquiescence. His unambitious spirit shrank from a seat in parliament, and he declined the successive offers of the governor-generalship of India, the permanent under-secretaryship of the board of control, and a special mission to Canada. With chambers in the Albany and quarters in friendly country houses, he occupied the earlier years of his retirement in study, interrupted by visits to Italy. He moved in London society, becoming a member of the 'Dilettanti,' and attending occasionally at public dinners and meetings. He gave evidence before the lords' committee on Indian affairs, and wrote papers of full and valuable information and opinions whenever consulted on such subjects. His leisure was devoted to the composition of his well-known 'History of India,' which will probably continue the most popular work on that country. In 1847 he took a house in Surrey, and lived for twelve years more, a secluded but by no means idle invalid. He recorded his dissent from the annexationist policy which is connected with the name of Lord Dalhousie, and it appears certain that his opinions had great weight in the new departure which marked the administration of Indian affairs after the suppression of the mutiny. His latest writings evinced no sign of failing powers. The end came softly and swiftly. He was seized in his house of Hookwood by paralysis on the night of 20 Nov. 1859, and died soon after without recovering his senses. He was buried in the adjoining churchyard of Limpsfield, a statue being raised in his honour in St. Paul's Cathedral. Macaulay pronounced him 'a great and accomplished man' (Life, ii 404). It is hardly necessary to point out the extraordinary qualities displayed in the story thus briefly told. Elphinstone was apparently quite aevoid of those ardent religious feelings which have inspired so many Indian heroes. In one of his later journals he makes his one allusion to religion; it is an encomium on Pope's 'Universal Prayer.' His attitude through life was rather that of an ancient philosopher. It is remarkable that a man so sceptical, retiring, unselfish, and modest should be one of the chief founders of the Anglo-Indian empire; that a man in youth a student and a sportsman, in later life almost an anchorite, should have been nominated repeatedly for the higher offices of state, and consulted as an oracle by the rulers of his country, yet never derive the smallest personal advantage from his position. A posthumous volume on 'The Rise of British Power in the East' was brought out in 1887 under the able editorship or Sir E. Colebrooke. It is quite unfinished, and less important in all respects than his 'History of the Hindu and Muhamadan Periods,' but it shows his characteristic qualities of conscientiousness and impartiality. The fragment on the character of Clive is particularly fine.
[The chief materials for Elphinstone's biography are to be found in Sir Edward Colebrooke's Life, 1884. The events of his public career are related in James Mill's Hist. of India, continued by Wilson; and in Grant Duff's Hist. of the Mahrattas. An interesting sketch of him as provernor of Bombay will be found in Bishop Heber's Indian Journal.]
ELPHINSTONE, WILLIAM (1431–1514), bishop of Aberdeen and founder of Aberdeen University, was born at Glasgow in 1431. He is stated to have been the son of William Elphinstone of Blythswood, Lanarkshire, a connection of the noble family of that name, by Margaret Douglas of the house of Mains, Dumbartonshire. But more than once in his career he required royal letters of legitimation to enable him to take office, and there is every reason to believe that he was the son of an illicitly married cleric, who was probably identical with the William Elphinstone who was canon of Glasgow from 1451 to 1482, dean of the faculty of arts in Glasgow University in 1468, prebend of Ancrum in 1479, and archdeacon of Teviotdale in 1482, and who died in 1486. The younger Elphinstone was educated in the pedagogie at Glasgow and afterwards at the university. There are several entries in
